I'm looking at an old email. So a collaborator had disappeared (really, no responses to emails or calls for IIRC three weeks) and we were concerned. She finally wrote that her aunt was sick in Connecticut, the aunt was like a second mother to her, and she's so sorry to have been out of communication despite getting all our emails.
We asked if she needed anything, any help at task in NY while she was in Connecticut. I think I said I hope she'll just drop us a quick one line email just to let us know she's gone on a family matter. (Indeed, since she had a whole history of getting upset and not communicating for a while before, we never knew if she was gone on a trip without telling us, was upset about something and stayed quiet for a while, stuck in a project for work, so we didn't know if she was even still on the project not hearing any answers for about 3 weeks.) She didn't understand why I thought a quick one-line email could be necessary. A few months later, when she got upset about something else, an email ending with:
"By the way, my dead aunt thanks you for your generosity of allowing me to spend time at her death bed earlier this year."